2016-10-20
Ms DUNN (Eastern Metropolitan) — I rise today to talk about the final report of the inquiry into the Road Safety Road Rules 2009 (Overtaking Bicycles) Bill 2015. The Victorian Greens welcome the tabling of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee's final report. Considering eight cyclists have lost their lives in Victoria in the last 12 months, it is imperative that this place makes progress on minimum passing distance laws to make our roads safer for all road users.
We are very supportive of the following recommendations which, if enacted, will go a long way to reducing deaths and injuries to cyclists. These include: recommendation 4, which requires motorists to provide a distance of at least 1 metre when passing or overtaking a cyclist in areas with speed limits up to 60 kilometres per hour or a minimum of 1.5 metres in areas with higher speed limits; recommendation 8, which allows motorists to cross over centre lines, painted islands and other road markings when passing or overtaking cyclists, if it is safe to do so; and recommendation 2, which introduces minimum bicycle and traffic lane widths for Victoria.
Recommendations 9 to 17 also have the full support of the Victorian Greens as they will improve awareness amongst motorists and institute training for police to assist motorists to abide by minimum passing and overtaking distances. This is after all not just about passing distances but about working towards a cultural shift whereby cyclists receive the legitimacy they are entitled to as road users.
However, there are some recommendations in this report that are retrograde and will only create confusion and detract from the effectiveness of minimum passing distance laws. These recommendations — namely, recommendations 3, 5 and 6 — would undercut the positive contribution to cyclist safety through the creation of minimum passing distances. These recommendations will be resolutely opposed by the Greens.
Recommendation 3 proffers a garbled request for different rules or guidance to apply at certain intersections in Melbourne's central business district. Some of its proposed solutions include having cyclists veer left through an intersection before veering right to adjoin the traffic lane. This recommendation is preposterous and could only be made by people who have no familiarity with cycling through intersections in built-up areas. To justify this recommendation some members of the committee have hypothesised about freak scenarios at certain junctions in the city in which hundreds of cyclists would swamp hapless motorists. This is nonsense. Cyclists take off from bicycle boxes and clear the intersection as soon as practical. They are after all on their bikes to get to a destination.
Motorists will not be unduly held up by cyclists. The presence of cyclists will not lead to the stopping of traffic flow, and hence there is no need for any special treatment at these intersections. This particularly includes bicycle lanes that veer to the left. Cycle lanes that veer left at intersections lead to close scrapes as well as accidents and deaths at the point where the bicycle lane adjoins the traffic lane. The existing lanes in the central business district and surrounding suburbs that veer to the left at intersections should be rectified such that they cross straight over the intersection.
When the onus of care is pushed from motorists to cyclists at intersections, hazardous interactions occur.
I move now to recommendations 5 and 6. They are also unacceptable as they dilute the existing right of cyclists to ride two abreast. Riding two abreast provides important protection to cyclists as it makes them more visible. When they are more visible motorists take greater caution in passing and overtaking. Furthermore, riding two abreast halves the length of the road over which a passing manoeuvre must be conducted by a motorist. The right to ride two abreast must remain untouched.
The Victorian Greens look forward to minimum passing distance laws in Victoria unadulterated by recommendations 3, 5 and 6. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the cycling groups, other road user groups, individuals and public servants that gave evidence to the committee. It has been a long journey to this point. We are not there yet, but I hold hope that minimum passing distances will become law in this state and provide safer cycling for those people who choose that great way to get around our great state.